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On the night of Sept. 1, 2021, as remnants of Hurricane Ida swept through the region, Christine Crooke kept watch while the Brandywine Creek rose up around her Downingtown townhouse.
She and her husband had been assured it occupied a “no flood zone” when they bought the property seven years before. Crooke learned how empty that assurance was when she went downstairs and opened the ground-level garage door.
“Literally a wall of water just came pouring down our driveway and into the garage,” Crooke, 68, recalled in a recent interview with WHYY News.
From then on it was just a losing race with the storm: The water rose, a nearby transformer was threatened and the Crookes were forced to evacuate.
By 10 p.m., firefighters arrived to lead the couple through cold, waist-level flood waters to safety.
“I was surprised at how high it was,” Crooke said. “I just never experienced anything like that before.”
The Crookes’ experience that night is becoming increasingly common throughout the region.
Climate change is supercharging the risk of severe flooding in the Greater Philadelphia area, and with it the threat to residents. A WHYY News analysis of limited data from Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery counties shows the number of water rescues conducted over the last two decades has increased dramatically in the suburbs of Philadelphia.
As a result, fire companies are investing big money in boats and dry suits as well as conducting rescue training on local creeks and rivers — all in an effort to keep residents afloat during the next big storm.
“What we used to know as normal is no longer normal,” said Shel Winkley, senior engagement specialist and chief meteorologist at Climate Central, a nonprofit collective of scientists who report on the changing climate. “These natural disasters have now turned more unnatural and we’re having to adapt faster.”
